Art festival at Jantar Mantar: JaipurPhoto 2018 is back with myriad stories

This weekend, Jantar Mantar in Jaipur will play host to a unique exhibition as part of JaipurPhoto 2018, an international outdoor photography festival.
 

The historic site will witness visual stories of meteorite falls from around the world as explored by German photographer Regine Petersen in Find a Fallen Star. Petersen looks at a home in Alabama where a rock crashed through the roof in the 1950s and hit a woman; a group of children who recovered a meteorite in their village in post-war Germany; and two Rajasthani shepherds who witnessed the fall of a mysterious stone in Kanwarpura village in 2006. Petersen has based her narrative on testimonies, documents, press reports and photographic observations. Moving from one large-scale print to another, one immediately draws a parallel between meteorites and photographs as time capsules — with each visual story taking the viewer to a specific place at a certain time in history.

Angst by Soham Gupta. Photos: courtesy artists and jaipurphoto

Also, by inserting photographs in a monumental setting, JaipurPhoto is extending the scope of Jantar Mantar from being a mere architectural backdrop to playing an integral role in shaping the way one views images and ascribes meaning to them. “Since the festival’s inaugural edition [2016], we have had our eyes on Jantar Mantar,” says Lola Mac Dougall, artistic director, JaipurPhoto, and co-founder GoaPhoto. It took the team three years to find a photographic body of work that did justice to the setting.

A Snake that Disappeared Through a Hole in the Wall by Tereza Zelenkova. Photos: courtesy artists and jaipurphoto

The play between architecture and contemporary photography is the thread that runs through the festival. So, the 14 exhibitions that are part of the festival will be staged at locations such as the Hawa Mahal, the City Palace and the Albert Hall Museum. Site-specific shows and large-format prints have been adapted to the exceptional architecture of the venues.

Arko Datto’s Pik-Nik. Photo: courtesy artists and jaipurphoto

  

The theme of the festival this time round is “Homeward Bound”, inspired by the Simon & Garfunkel song by the same title.

Curated by UK-based artist, writer and editor Aaron Schuman, the programme looks at the myriad ways in which contemporary photographers explore, express and engage with the notion of “home”. The theme has prompted them to reflect on several key questions: what happens when one’s gaze turns towards one’s own community; or when, as outsiders, photographers explore “homes” of others? How are the boundaries of homes and homelands defined, delineated and defended? What does it mean to be bound to one’s idea of the home?

 

A Dozen Doors by Jason Fulford. Photo: courtesy artists and jaipurphoto

Asmita Palekar’s work, Giraffe Behind the Door, which looks at the relationship between humans and animals, for instance, is a telling commentary on human versus wild homes. It depicts how, to give an illusion of a wild home, humans design gardens and zoos with artificial habitats, while confining wild animals to cages and glass boxes. Similarly, Jason Fulford’s A Dozen Doors explores the shift in the notion of “home” from a geographical place of identity to something more abstract — the state of mind.

Nola Minolfi’s The Man Who Never Saw the Sea. Photo: courtesy artists and jaipurphoto

Another interesting photo project is Nora Minolfi’s The Man Who Never Saw the Sea. Her images spin stories of inhabitants of the village of Chamois, the highest municipality in the Italian Alps, which has 90 residents who have never seen the sea. So, there is 85-year-old Emilio, who has lived his entire life in the house in which he was born. He has spent all his life growing oats, barley, rye and milking cows. He has never had a day off, and has never had a girlfriend, as his mother didn’t allow him to have one. His most ardent wish is to live until the next spring so that he can see his meadows in bloom again.

Sebastian Bruno’s Duelos y Quebrantos. Photo: courtesy artists and jaipurphoto

One of the highlights of this edition is an exhibition of select works from the archives of Ram Chand, who ran a photo studio called Shatranj in Jaipur. The collection of studio portraits — of subjects dressed in their best, with hairstyles inspired by Bollywood films of the time, looking stiffly into the camera — have been selected by French artist Christophe Prébois. These will be showcased at the first-floor platform of the Hawa Mahal. There are images from the 1960s-70s of muscular moustachioed men, of youths who wanted to send photos to their beloved as keepsakes, and even of those who wanted images of their favourite cine stars superimposed next to them.

Terje Abusdal’s Slash and Burn. Photo: courtesy artists and jaipurphoto

Prébois, a collector of Indian vernacular photography, has known Chand for over 20 years and has also directed a documentary, Mr Ram Chand Photographer, on the photo studio owner’s life. It will be screened during JaipurPhoto’s opening weekend.

Terje Abusdal’s Slash and Burn. Photo: courtesy artists and jaipurphoto

“When I saw his (Chand’s) works, I realised this was no ordinary photographer, whether it was his inventiveness, sense of humour, playfulness or variety of approaches to the photographic portrait,” says Mac Dougall. “I particularly liked to imagine the photographic studio as a space where the sitters felt their privacy was protected, and this trust is apparent in many of the images.” Mac Dougall is sure that there are many other Mr Chands waiting to be discovered across India, and many archives waiting to be rescued from ignominy.

JaipurPhoto 2018 will be held at various venues across Jaipur till March 4